RT Journal Article
T1 Inflammatory indices obtained from routine blood tests show an inflammatory state associated with disease progression in engineered stone silicosis patients.
A1 Garcia-Nuñez, Alejandro
A1 Jimenez-Gomez, Gema
A1 Hidalgo-Molina, Antonio
A1 Cordoba-Doña, Juan Antonio
A1 Leon-Jimenez, Antonio
A1 Campos-Caro, Antonio
K1 Área de Gestión Sanitaria de Jerez, Costa Noroeste y Sierra de Cádiz
K1 Inflammation
K1 L-Lactate dehydrogenase
K1 Male
K1 Pneumoconiosis
K1 Silicosis
AB Patients with silicosis caused by occupational exposure to engineered stone (ES) present a rapid progression from simple silicosis (SS) to progressive massive fibrosis (PMF). Patient classification follows international rules based on radiology and high-resolution computed tomography (HRCT), but limited studies, if any, have explored biomarkers from routine clinical tests that can be used as predictors of disease status. Our objective was thus to investigate circulating biomarker levels and systemic inflammatory indices in ES silicosis patients whose exposure to ES dust ended several years ago. Ninety-one adult men, ex-workers in the manufacturing of ES, 53 diagnosed with SS and 38 with PMF, and 22 healthy male volunteers (HC) as controls not exposed to ES dust, were recruited. The following circulating levels of biomarkers like lactate dehydrogenase (LDH), angiotensin-converting-enzyme (ACE), protein C reactive (PCR), rheumatoid factor, alkaline phosphatase and fibrinogen were obtained from clinical reports after being measured from blood samples. As biochemical markers, only LDH (HC = 262 ± 48.1; SS = 315.4 ± 65.4; PMF = 337.6 ± 79.3 U/L), ACE (HC = 43.1 ± 18.4; SS = 78.2 ± 27.2; PMF = 86.1 ± 23.7 U/L) and fibrinogen (HC = 182.3 ± 49.1; SS = 212.2 ± 43.5; PMF = 256 ± 77.3 U/L) levels showed a significant sequential increase, not been observed for the rest of biomarkers, in the HC → SS → PMF direction. Moreover, several systemic inflammation indices neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio (NLR), lymphocyte-to-monocyte ratio (LMR), platelet-to-lymphocyte ratio (PLR), systemic inflammation response index (SIRI), systemic immune-inflammation index (SII), aggregate index of systemic inflammation (AISI) derived from whole blood cell counts showed significant differences between the HC, SS and PMF groups. All these biomarkers were analyzed using receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves, and the results provided moderately high sensitivity and specificity for discriminating between ES silicosis patient groups and healthy controls. Our study reveals that some inflammatory biomarkers, easily available from routine blood analysis, are present in ES silicosis patients even several years after cessation of exposure to ES silica dust and they could help to know the progression of the disease.
PB Nature Publishing Group
YR 2022
FD 2022-04-25
LK http://hdl.handle.net/10668/19604
UL http://hdl.handle.net/10668/19604
LA en
NO García-Núñez A, Jiménez-Gómez G, Hidalgo-Molina A, Córdoba-Doña JA, León-Jiménez A, Campos-Caro A. Inflammatory indices obtained from routine blood tests show an inflammatory state associated with disease progression in engineered stone silicosis patients. Sci Rep. 2022 May 17;12(1):8211
DS RISalud
RD Apr 19, 2025